Canadia Part 1

Canada and Washington were pretty, that's for sure, but we didn't take too many "scenic" pictures, for whatever reason. Kaylynn is a more fun object to photograph. :) Here's a quick tour of our week long vacation (fyi, all photos are unedited...our computer with photo shop currently hates me.)

Day 1 - We arrive into Seattle around 9pm at night. Our bags do not. Why? Because the lovely curbside check-in man (who took our bags...we didn't even want to curbside check-in, for good reason) decided to give us correct boarding passes and incorrect luggage tags. He tagged our 1 bag (a small duffel that cost us $23 to check) under the name "Takekawa" and sent it to San Francisco. ? Trip is not starting off well.

Day 2 - Using our complimentary Continental airlines toiletries, we clean up and head out to visit Northwest Washington. AKA Twilight country. Yes, I made Brian take a tour of the Twilight towns. Why not? We had a day to kill and when again would we get to tour the most northwest point in the continental United States. First stop is La Push, home of the Quileute Tribe (think Jacob and the werewolves.)


And just for fun. :)
We saw Jacob Black, chilling at home.Heading from La Push to Forks, just a shot to show how thick the woods were.This cracked me up. There were so many die-hard Twilight fans. This father (yes, father) was starting his boys early. Maybe they were Bella fans? Oh, in case you are curious, their shirts say "I am pretty much one of the best people I know." Nice. The town of Forks is not interesting. At all. I did take the obligatory photos of the spots around town that inspired the places in the books/movies, but they aren't interesting. What is interesting is how blue this lake was. It faded from clear water by the shore, to green further out, to the very pretty blue that you see. This was driving back towards Port Angeles. In Port Angeles, I took the same obligatory photos, but again, not interesting to most of you, I'm sure. On our way back to Seattle, we learned that Jack Dwyer was running for State Rep in Washington. Go Jack, you've got our vote! (for those who wondering...we have family friends with a grandson/son/nephew named "Jack Dwyer".) There was also a highly inappropriate, but highly hilarious poster right by Jack's. That's all I'm saying.
That concludes Day 2. We made it back to Seattle, met up with the Podds, and ate some yummy pizza!

Day 3 - Oh, Canada! We head to Vancouver, bright and early in the am. We're disappointed because after spending $80 for Kaylynn's passport, she still doesn't have a stamp to prove she's an international traveler. We got settled into our condo and did a little walking around before dinner.
There is a cute picture of Kaylynn and Carter, but it's on the Podd's camera. Anywho, we had great views of the city of Vancouver from the 21st floor of our building. To end our first night in Vancouver, the kids enjoyed a little night cap of milk on one of the 2 balconies. It is an understatement when I say that the kiddos LOVED the balconies. They spent every second they could out there. Probably had something to do with the awesome weather! Good night, Day 3!

Tree-ing

Huh? That was my reaction when I first heard Brandon say the phrase. We were playing in a corporate basketball league in London and we were playing against a team that was shooting lights out. We called a time out and gathered around Brandon to figure out what the heck we could do to slow them down. He said not to worry about it because they were "tree-ing".

BvF: What did you say?
Brandon: I said they are tree-ing.
BvF: Oh, ok.
BvF (turning to Bree): ::whispering:: What's tree-ing?
Bree: ::shoulder shrug::
BvF: Brandon, what's tree-ing?
Brandon: ::sigh:: Get with the program. They are playing above their level. They are playing in the trees. They are tree-ing. Any more questions genius?
BvF: Nope.

The NBA season is now over and I have had some time to get over my (recurring) disappointment at the performance of a Cleveland team. But the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that Orlando was tree-ing. Actually, I figured that out before the finals. I knew what was going to happen. Orlando was going to shoot lights out during the Cavs series and they were going to go stone cold in the finals. Sure enough...

Consider this. Orlando shot 48% percent from the field during the Cavs series. Not only that, but they shot 40% from three-point range. That's good. Really good. Add in the fact that Dwight Howard actually made his free throws and you have a team that scored a lot of points, really fast.

Then the "Magic" got to the finals and were not able to pull the rabbit out of the hat. They shot 43% from the field. This may not look that much worse than the percentage shot during the Cavs series, but consider this: Orlando shot an ungodly 62.5% in game three. They were shooting 75% at the half for crying out loud (and were only up by 5!). Take out this game and you find that they shot 38% from the field. They also only shot 33% from three-point range and shot much worse from the free throw line.

Why the difference? I'm sure there are plenty of theories: (1) better defense by the Lakers (I don't buy it - they did the same thing we did: double-down on Howard and give up the three); (2) Orlando was a better team than the Cavs (maybe; they did own us during the regular season, but I'm still not convinced. Consider that they did own the Lakers as well by winning 3 of the last 4 before the finals...); (3) Orlando had better coaching (ha! All I ever heard from Stan was "Play hard. Keep up the intensity. Stay focused. Play defense." I could coach like that. Any team interested in a coach next year? Law school's getting old.)

My theory: they were tree-ing. Numbers don't lie. They played well against the Cavs, but they were caught with their pants down in the finals. Or, I guess another way of putting it, the Magic got their branches clipped in the championship series.

What's the end result? There's always next year for a Cleveland sports fan.

Maybe next year.